[This case study was delivered by one of our Fractional CMOs before they joined VCMO.]

The Company.

LeaseLoco.com is a venture capital start up launched in 2019 as a comparison site for car and van leasing deals.

The Background.

LeaseLoco’s CEO mission was to take on the competition and become the most recognisable online car leasing marketplace for consumers and businesses. The objective was to grow over a 5-year period to become the market leader in terms of revenue and ultimately sell the businesses to private equity investors. In 2021 LeaseLoco made the decision to hire Jonathan McGregor as interim CMO.

The Marketing Challenge.

The market for leasing and buying cars is extremely competitive with well established brands and websites spending millions on brand communications and online lead generation. As with any sector a new entrant has to work within really tight budgets and low brand recognition and has to be really smart to acquire customers cost effectively and grow margins. The key objectives were to:

• Set out a clear marketing and online lead generation strategy and identify key areas to maximise performance, conversion, and revenue growth;
• Take responsibility for day-to-day management and mentoring of the marketing and ecommerce teams;
• Define and build an ongoing marketing and ecommerce resourcing model that can flex up and down as the business needs;
• Deliver a broad campaign and channel acquisition plan to acquire customers cost effectively – improving the relevant marketing funnel metrics and KPI’s;
• Create a culture of marketing and sales excellence.

Marketing Transformation.

Leadership and Strategic Insights

Jonathan took on the role of CMO and performed a 360-degree review of LeaseLoco’s marketing channels team capabilities, online experience and brand proposition/recognition in the marketplace and worked with CEO to set out a clear marketing strategy and channel acquisition plan to deliver the 3-year commercial targets. This included a prioritisation framework for both long-term and strategies and short-term objectives to improve performance.

Designed and Delivered a Transformational Change Roadmap

After reviewing the organisation, Jonathan realised that a pivotal change was required around several key areas to enable the business to scale and compete against its much bigger competitors. A transformational growth roadmap was set out that included:

1. Brand Strategy: Following a detailed piece of research undertaken externally a clear brand strategy was set out and agreed. A specialist brand agency that the CMO had worked with was then engaged to work with the team to develop a compelling and differentiated brand proposition and creative identity that stood out in a very crowded and “dull marketplace” where there is very little consumer recognition of brands.
2. Website: Transform the website to become the “best in class” site and experience articulated why both end consumers and its suppliers should of change was devised in consultation with key stakeholders and considered the employees, product, operational and customer requirements. Johnathan delivered a clear plan to leverage the strengths of the company its people, products, and technology with a focused outcome without disruption to the existing business.
3. CRM Automation: Set up a CRM and campaign automation model to drive up increased conversion, acquisition, and ongoing customer engagement. This included sourcing appropriate technology for CRM and email campaign management. As a result, acquisition of new leads via email channels has gone from less than 1% to over 13% of all new customers.
4. Team Development: Set out an organisational framework and defined structures, roles and accountabilities and recruited a team that now is 8 people for the digital growth of the business.

Operational Management

Jonathan plays an integral role in creating a culture that manages and identifies day to day issues, successes, and opportunities. He created a team that has the talent, resources, mandate, and infrastructure to support the agreed growth strategy and brought on specialist agencies as and when certain skillsets were required. A new marketing dashboard has been implemented that enables the whole business to review performance across channels and plan future campaigns

Result.

Jonathan’s marketing transformation efforts helped LeaseLoco achieve:

• New Brand proposition that has won plaudits from both customers and the dealers;
• Broadened acquisition channels across affiliate, email, ppc, marketing partnerships, paid media, and programmatic retargeting;
• Overall Cost per Acquisition across all channels has reduced by 50%;
• New CRM and campaign management technology implemented and fully operational;
• Brand new website and functionality rebuilt that has resulted in increased conversion by 27%;
• Business has now moved from loss making to break-even and now delivering first months of profit;
• Won 2 new brand distribution partnerships with AA and CompareTheMarket.com;
• Successfully secured £5m investment to support the new business plan.

About VCMO

VCMO helps SMEs and investor-backed portfolio companies with a £2 million or higher turnover that operate without a full-time Chief Marketing Officer. Our Fractional CMOs and tailored services transform marketing potential into a competitive advantage that delivers scalable and predictable growth, increased profits, and enhanced enterprise value.